When Bells Luck won at Bathurst last Monday she covered the 307m in 17.62, not far outside the flying Entrust’s course record of 17.36.
Bells Luck, trained by 76-year-old retired farmer Kevin Pearce, is not by a boom Sydney-based stud dog but was sired by the amazing Bells Fair, who won 52 from 121 races for western districts trainer Mark Vella.
"I sold Bells Fair to Mark as an unraced dog after he trialled 26.14 over 450m at Bathurst," Kevin recalled.
"Bells Fair was only a 450m dog but he was very smart."
Kevin, a hobby trainer since 1965, was originally at Ilford but for the past 16 years has reared, broken in and trained a handful of greyhounds on three acres at Bathurst.
Keen judges out west have told me for years that he is an outstanding trainer, although he won’t travel to Sydney.
"That’s why I sell a lot of dogs, I hate reaching Parramatta Road and then taking over an hour to drive 20 kilometres," he said.
"I sold Spring Legacy and that dog earned $80,000 prizemoney for his new owner Greg Board.
"And I recently sold Bells Will to Carolyn Hore, the wife of former GRNSW grader Greg Hore, and that dog has won eight races straight for her in NEW ZEALAND.
"But my dogs aren’t suited by big kennels because they get a lot of tender loving care from the moment they arrive at my place as pups and they often miss that after they are sold."
Kevin Pearce has a wonderfully quirky sense of humour.
A rival trainer once said to him: "I’d like to know what you are using on your dogs to make them win."
Kevin replied: "Give me your racebook, I’ll write it down for you."
The rival became quite excited at the prospect of getting this inside information on making greyhounds win but opened his book to find Kevin had written: "Common sense."
xxxx
There have been litters which have earned more prizemoney but not many with a better winning strike rate than Mark Wilcox’s March, 2011 dogs by Knocka Norris from Winning Shiraz.
When Knocka’s Return and Natural Player scored at Bulli on Wednesday they took their records to 17 wins from 36 starts and 13 wins from 16 starts respectively.
Others from the litter which Mark also trains are Highly Respected, who has won 10 out of 22, Buster Shiraz, a winner of eight from 16 races, Coonawarra Gold, who has won seven from 18 and Winning Knocka, now in NEW ZEALAND, who boasts six wins from 21 starts.
Ironically Cool Maddie Ross, at breaking in probably the fastest of them all, has had only eight starts for two wins due to injury problems.
The Bulli double by Knocka’s Return and Natural Player was timely for Mark because their dam Winning Shiraz has an eight week old litter by Magic Sprite, comprising three dogs and three bitches.
"I’m going to sell some, I can’t keep them all," Mark said.
xxxx
Redford won on debut over 515m at Gosford on Tuesday in a tidy 30.16 but connections already believe the dog’s future is as a stayer.
"He has long distance greyhound written all over him," said Vince Bennett, whose 21-year-old daughter Amy trains Redford.
"The dog is owned by Toby Weekes of Molong, who bought him after a performance trial.
"Toby usually trains his owns dogs but when it was time for Redford to start racing he had too many to handle and asked Amy to take him.
"Toby and his father Gus were formerly renowned harness racing people in the western districts and I made their acquaintance at a Dubbo trotting meeting a few years ago.
"Amy has only had Redford for a month and he is too young to go over the longer distances yet but on his phenomenal run home time at Gosford he’ll stay for sure."
